Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Right, and looking out for neuts is not taking effort? That's just automatic right, I get a bleep bleep noise and my ship starts aligning?
If you have war targets, you look for them on local, same as me looking for neuts. If you are at war, you avoid systems where your war targets are reported, same as me in null. Anti ganking is as simple as avoiding gankers. If someone jumps on grid with you, jump off. Same as in null I could get attacked by a blue.
For trading and industry, you never need to leave a station. You can put red frog contracts in to get your stuff moved, and put more collateral than they are worth, so if they get ganked, you actually make money, 100% risk free.
The difference being high sec income is VASTLY higher than null. How can you seriously look at what a high sec player does and say it has as much effort to avoid risk when it's clearly bull. At the most, a L4 player has the same amount of risk to mitigate, but often less, since if they are playing it right, they will be in a ship that would take too much effort to gank for the payout (note, if you are in a 60b isk raven you are NOT doing it right).

But instead of a cloaked ship in high sec, you could have an out of corp alt, possibly a disposable one if a point is involved.
Then, your war target can land on you, and pop you.
(The point is expected to get popped, but it only needs to last until the real hostile shows, and he has permission to do anything)

The way I see it is as an ecosystem. Not enough prey, the hunters starve (i.e. leave the game--not a good outcome). Too easy to catch prey, then the prey are wiped out...and then the hunters starve (even worse for the game). So there needs to be a balance...and equilibrium. Game balance is about finding that equilibrium. If the game mechanics are such that you can avoid being killed 99% of the time then that might be too high...and be bad for the game.

Of course, being killed can be offset by providing better benefits to being in null and playing as prey (please, keep in mind I play the prey too, while this is my PvP main, I have several PvE alts and yes, they are in null for the most part). With the higher benefits you can absorb that loss and still make "progress" such as accumulating is, buying other in game items to engage in other aspects of the game and so forth. And prey does not have to just be PvE, but even other PvPers.

Pretty much, and not without solid ideas from the community on how to decouple intel and local. At least that is CCP Explorer's public statements.

I'll repost this, it has a number of suggestions:

http://interstellarprivateer.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/unbreaking-local/



With enough of an upgrade you'd have very good intel and the exact mechanics are vague. For example maybe you can't put it in the same system as a cyno jammer. Maybe it is pretty expensive--i.e. trying to do it for all your systems you alliance controls may be cost prohibitive. It might even be hackable...hack it so it gives false intel or no intel.

Note that the mechanics here could be such that with the highest level of upgrades you'd get the same intel as in high sec...go read that to see what its like...in fact, read the whole thing.

I'm really not trying to be a jerk here. I'm not after shooting fish in a barrel. Maybe that 99% is too high right now for the "ecosystem" I noted in an earlier post. But that doesn't mean we have to plummet to 75% or 50%. It could take just a very minor tweak and drop us down to 98% coupled with a suitable bump in benefits for PvEing in null (for the individual pilot that is). So yeah, over some period of time you'll double your losses, but you'll have more than enough income so that you wont be worse off in the end. Here, let me give an example:

Suppose that 99% is for 100 "ship hours" of game play (this is just for the sake of explication, ok, don't jump down my throat for some made up numbers to illustrate a point, they are not meant to taken as gospel or anything like that). That is after 100 hours of using that ship "type" you expect to lose 1 of that ship type. Now, you'll lose 2. So your expected losses per 100 hours also doubles. But what I'm saying is that the benefits of being in null are increased so that not only will you be no worse off from the case of losing 1 ship, but you'll be even slightly better off. In economics we call this concept compensating variation.

Notice what that says. The consumer starts out with utility (welfare--i.e. "happiness, well being, etc.") of U1. Then something happens and knocks them down to U2 (i.e. U1 > U2). That is the consumer is made worse off. In economics it could be a price increase which means you will buy less of the good that had the price increase. The compensating variation is the amount of income that would have to be given to the consumer to allow him to return to the original level of utility, U1. In this case I'd argue for not only enough extra isk from PvEing in null to get you back to the original level of satisfaction, but maybe a bit more (and note, I'm not saying you have to do more PvE...it is still the same number of hours--i.e. the isk/hour would increase).

In short, you'd be no worse off. Well unless you simply can't abide the idea of being ganked at all. If that is the case, well...that is a problem given the nature of this game.

Disclaimer (via edit): In an attempt to make some peace here....

1. I see AFK cloaking as a problem. It is boring game play, really boring. Boring for those who do it, and boring for those who are victims of it. I'd like to see it go. So, for guys like Lucas, Vas, et. al. we are in agreement (I hope).

2. I would like to see more PvE/Industry in null. This is a bigger issue than just AFK cloaking. We can discuss it in this thread, but it is a bit off topic. If somebody started that topic, that wouldn't be a Bad Thing™.

3. This is an attempt at a Serious Internet Spaceship Game™ post. No insults are intended anywhere through out.

Pulling that part out to offer a suggestion....

How about some random timer on when local updates for you, the current resident in the system. Sometimes you'll see with plenty of time to warp. Sometimes it will be iffy, and sometimes you'll notice him when it is waaaay to late (in local chat that is, d-scan would still work if he is not cloaked). Note, I'm not specifying any exact probabilities or probability density function here, so don't assume anything horrible. Its a basic idea being tossed out.

Just a quick question, we are talking about the current mechanics, right. With local how it works now?

With any mechanic. All mechanics can be mastered to give a perfect result. A new intel tool would take time to adjust to, but would result in a "one best way" approach to early detection.

Just tossing out a precedent in game that does not fit this: invention. Skills can influence it, but it isn't perfect.

And another: shooting with guns, IIRC there is probability at work somewhere in there which is likely influenced by skills...IDK, I'd have to go back and look at the damage equation for guns.

I know the discussions devolve into primarily two camps that become very ossified in their positions. But I can't help but look back over out last few posts and see a strong link between AFK cloaking and local.

And maybe the suggested quick fix is not good. Maybe its horrible, but it is something that could be put on the test server (maybe, IDK if it is even doable from a programming stand point) and tested.

Or we stick with the status quo for now.

Like I say though, I don;t at all disagree that local is the root cause. I don't disagree that changing local would fix the issue. I just think changing local would have too many other issues, most affecting the null blob playerbase which is pretty enormous, while providing no real benefit for the high sec player base. Core mechanic changes like this could take years just to reach a decision on how to approach them, then just as long to implement.
From my point of view, separating individual issues from local, 1 at a time, would make it easier to change. Put in a new type of intel now, alongside local. Make it all shiny and good to use, with it's own benefits to local reliance is not so strong. Once you've worked out all of the issues that rely on local, changing local will be like changing any other minor feature.